GRANADA Reports faces the axe in the next decade, along with all of ITV's regional programming, under radical proposals forming part of an Ofcom consultation document.

Regional output from ITV Granada - which in 2002 employed around 60 people, producing 440 hours of television made exclusively for the north west - would be scrapped in favour of more lucrative network programming.

The broadcasting giant this week signalled that it supports proposals to weaken the requirements of regional broadcasting licence, even though senior management repeatedly stressed their loyalty to regional programming prior to Granada's merger with Carlton.

Interviewed by the Manchester Evening News on several occasions before ITV's consolidation - most recently in February this year - chief executive Charles Allen repeatedly insisted that the company would remain loyal to both Manchester and the north west.

"The single unique selling-point we have as ITV is regionality," Mr Allen said.

The weakening of ITV's regional commitments form part of Ofcom's proposals for a blueprint for the future of public service broadcasting, which also suggests the creation of a third public service broadcasting channel. The BBC, too, would take over more of ITV's commitments.

The proposals will be on the agenda during an Ofcom event entitled Meeting The Digital Challenge in Manchester next month, where speakers will include Granada MD Sue Woodward, former ITV programming director, David Liddiment, and the BBC's director for the nation and regions, Pat Loughrey.

ITV licencees

Ofcom recognises that ITV licencees would be unfairly shackled by existing commitments as digital TV leads to more intense competition.

Commenting on the proposals, a Granada spokeswoman said much had changed since the February merger: "This is something we have been lobbying about for some time. We felt we shouldn't have to pay a huge licence fee as well as carrying the huge burden of a public service broadcasting remit."

In unveiling its proposals for television in the digital age, Ofcom said it believed the current licensing system would "wither" when the analogue system was switched off by 2012.

Currently required to provide regional, religious and children's broadcasts, ITV would only be required to offer a core regional news service and only then if "financially sustainable".

Ray Fitzwalter, a formerly editor of World In Action and now chairman for the Campaign for Quality Television, said: "ITV would score two enormous benefits: it would no longer have to make costly regional programmes, and could fill those slots with lucrative commercial programmes.

"If ITV were to gain these benefits, I think it should help to pay for the proposed third public service channel. It would be a travesty if ITV simply got away with being relieved of its licensing commitments.

"Prior to the merger Charles Allen said he was passionate about the regions. What they say and what they do are two different things."